


Insomnia

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-07
Updated: 2010-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starsky spends his first night at Venice Place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomnia

It's dark and the shadows look funny. They're in all the wrong places. And the sounds from the beach are too close, too insistent. He listens, and no ducks quack.

He looks to his right and sees a familiar shape curled next to him, big familiar hands clutching the pillow. That means everything's basically okay, but he's still disoriented.

"Hutch?"

His only answer is an incoherent murmur.

He pokes Hutch gently in the ribs. "Hutch, where are we?"

Hutch winces and tries to roll away.

"Hutch, wake up. Where are we?"

Hutch sighs heavily and turns over. "In bed."

Starsky looks warily from side to side. "In bed where?"

"My place, remember? My new place." Hutch yawns.

"Oh, yeah." Starsky relaxes. "I forgot. Everything feels different."

"Everything's fine, Starsk," Hutch mumbles. "Go back to sleep."

Starsky's silent for a while, listening to the ocean beyond the open window and to Hutch's soft, even breathing. But it's no good.

"Hutch."

"Mmm."

"I can't sleep."

"Hmm?"

"I'm awake now. I can't sleep when I'm awake."

Hutch opens one eye and glares with it. "Then shut up and let _me_ sleep when you're awake."

"There's too much noise here. How can you sleep through all that noise?"

Hutch casts a weary glance at the ceiling. "It's no noisier than your place. You sleep there."

"Yeah, but I'm used to it there. This place is weird, Hutch. Who wants to live over a restaurant?"

"You told me your grandmother lived over a restaurant!"

"Yeah, and she was a miserable old crone, too. I mean, doesn't it drive you nuts, all the smells? Aren't you hungry all the time?"

"Some people can control themselves around food, Starsky. That's one of the fundamental differences between my psychological makeup and yours."

"It is, huh?"

"Also, I don't torment my best friend by subjecting him to forced sleep deprivation experiments."

Starsky shrugs resignedly. "Okay, I hear ya. You wanna go back to sleep, go back to sleep."

Hutch sighs. "Thank you." He gives his pillow a stern pummeling before burying his head in it and closing his eyes.

After a moment Starsky says, "But _I_ can't go back to sleep."

Hutch pops up, bracing himself on his elbows. "Starsky -- "

"I mean it, Hutch. Once I'm awake, I'm awake, you know that. I hate waking up early, 'cause I can never go back to sleep." He pauses reflectively. "Maybe I oughta take pills."

Hutch stares at him. " _Pills?_ Are you crazy?"

"You know, just when I need 'em -- "

"You _don't_ need them! You're not taking sleeping pills, you'll get dependent, you'll get -- "

"Okay, okay, I won't take pills! Get your finger outta my chest!"

Hutch looks down, startled, at the index finger he's poking repeatedly into Starsky's breastbone. He withdraws it quickly and lies back down. There's a long moment's silence.

"Hutch?"

Hutch sighs. "What?"

"You can't sleep either, huh?"

Hutch turns his head slowly on the pillow and gazes at him.

Starsky smiles. Hutch is cute when he's mad. "I know how it is, buddy." He pats Hutch's arm comfortingly. "It's tough, trying to get back to sleep when you're wide awake."

Hutch looks up, shaking his head slowly, helplessly.

"Hey, you wanna do something? I mean, since neither of us can sleep."

Hutch doesn't answer.

Starsky slides a little closer to him, twisting his neck to look at the bedside clock. "It's five o'clock. We got an hour before we have to get up." He lays a hand on Hutch's belly, just below the navel, and grins. "It never takes us that long."

"Your hand is cold," Hutch says flatly.

"Oh." Starsky pulls it back. "Sorry." He pauses. "Bet yours are warm, though, aren't they?" He takes Hutch's hand and holds it between his own. "Yeah, nice and warm. They always are, every time they touch me."

"Starsk," Hutch says, "we really need to get some sleep."

"You don't have to pretend with me, babe," Starsky murmurs, letting a dramatic throb creep into his voice the way Steve McQueen did in _Baby, the Rain Must Fall_. "You think I don't know when you're yearning for my body?"

Hutch rolls his eyes. "Not yearning, _yawning_."

"And besides, it'll help you sleep." He drops a soft kiss on Hutch's left nipple and is rewarded with an equally soft sigh. He looks up to see Hutch regarding him with reluctantly affectionate eyes.

Hutch sinks a hand into Starsky's disheveled curls and rubs his scalp gently. "I thought you were the one who needed help sleeping."

"Whatever." Starsky kisses him again, on the neck, at the same time gathering Hutch's slowly swelling erection in his hand. "Come on, blondie. I got the perfect place for our friend here. All nice and tight and hot, he's gonna like it -- " He is cut off as Hutch grabs his head and grinds their lips together in a devouring kiss. Starsky yelps, startled, but quickly parries his partner's attack. They roll together, first one on top, then the other, kissing, touching, gasping, until a steady rhythm of guttural moans and slapping flesh and protesting bedsprings rises to an exquisite, excruciating crescendo, and then plummets down, down, to damp sheets and slowing pulses and panting breaths and Hutch's cock slipping gradually from Starsky's body, and the pair of them settling, with dreamy languor, into each other's embrace.

Starsky closes his eyes, yawns, and strokes Hutch's chest. Hutch nuzzles Starsky's hair and sighs.

After a moment Hutch says, "I would've fucked you, anyway, you know. You could've just asked. All that stuff about sleeping pills and noise..."

Starsky shrugs, not opening his eyes. "You're more fun when you're stirred up."

He's almost asleep again when Hutch's whisper tickles his ear. "Starsk? Sweetheart?"

Drowsy though he is, Starsky grins. Hutch has a tendency to get ridiculously mushy after sex. "What is it, sugar pie?"

Hutch growls warningly, and Starsky's grin widens. He feels Hutch shift, reaching, and then there's a soft towel rubbing gently between his legs and over his ass. "Did you mean what you said?" Hutch asks. "You really don't like this place?"

Starsky blinks. "Did I say that?"

Hutch moves the towel to his own groin, scrubbing carefully. "In so many words."

Starsky shrugs. "It's your place, not mine. I like it as long as you're in it."

Hutch tosses the towel aside and lies back. "It's bigger. And there aren't any -- you know, bad memories."

"Yeah," Starsky says softly. He hesitates a moment, and then takes Hutch's arm and kisses it, right in the crook of the elbow, where the track marks used to be.

"But there will be, I guess." Hutch sighs. "Just give it time."

"Hey." Starsky catches Hutch's chin and turns it toward him. "You and me together, we won't let that happen. We'll make 'em all happy memories." Shit. Now Hutch is turning _him_ mushy. He clears his throat impatiently and drops his hand from Hutch's face.

Hutch smiles. "The cottage had some good memories too, though, come to think of it."

Starsky thinks of it, of candles and sunsets and Paul Muni and their bodies sliding slick and hot together for the first time, and the way his pain had slipped away from him, lost in Hutch's warm flesh.

"Yeah," he says. "That was a real nice place."

"Starsk," Hutch says, "I wish we could live together."

Starsky blinks at him, startled by the longing in the soft voice. "Where'd that come from?"

Hutch shrugs a little, his shoulder moving under Starsky's head. "I think about it sometimes. Don't you?"

Starsky says nothing, because he really hasn't thought about it. It's too far out of the realm of possibility to waste mental energy on.

"It might be nice, buying things for the house together, washing dishes together, having a joint checking account..." Hutch trails off, sounding a little embarrassed, Starsky thinks, but not nearly embarrassed enough.

"You have got to be kidding me." But Hutch isn't. Starsky can see it in his eyes before he turns them quickly away.

"Forget it," Hutch says shortly.

"You're actually serious." Starsky raises himself on one elbow and stares down at his partner. "Why don't we flap our arms and fly to the moon while we're at it?"

"All right!" Hutch snaps. "I said forget it." He turns over deliberately and faces the wall.

Starsky sighs. "Hutch." He tugs gently at Hutch's shoulder. "Don't be mad. Come on, I'm sorry."

"No, it's all right." Hutch's voice is distant, muffled by the pillow. "Some things you shouldn't say out loud."

"Aw, you can say anything you want to me, you know that." Starsky pauses. "Are you gonna look at me or am I just gonna keep talkin' to the back of your neck?"

There's a momentary silence before Hutch asks, "What's wrong with the back of my neck?"

Starsky smiles, relieved at the faintly playful note in his partner's voice. "Not a damn thing, buddy." He inches closer, letting his voice drop to a whisper. "I think it's kinda sexy." He puts his lips to Hutch's nape, laying a kiss on the soft skin. He feels Hutch shiver, and follows up the kiss with a tiny bite.

Hutch turns over and presses his forehead to Starsky's. "I can't help it if I love you," he says.

Starsky feels a knot form in his throat and coughs to loosen it. "'Course you can't," he says. "I'm pretty fuckin' loveable." He pulls Hutch into a rib-cracking hug and they lie a while, not speaking, listening to each other's breathing and the distant, rolling surf. A few early cars pass, tires humming on the street.

"This ain't so bad after all," Starsky observes eventually. He smoothes Hutch's tousled hair back from his eyes. "The noise, I mean. Kinda lulling, y'know?"

Hutch nods, his lips curving against Starsky's cheek. "You get used to it."

Starsky pulls back and looks into his eyes. "Maybe someday, huh? Someday things might be different, even for cops."

"Yeah." Hutch sighs. "Maybe." He punches Starsky in the arm. "Are you finally ready to let me sleep?"

Starsky punches back. "Sure, absolutely, anything you want. Do I look like the kinda guy who'd keep his partner awake when he's tryin' to sleep? I'd never be that mean, Hutch."

Hutch visibly restrains himself from replying. They readjust themselves, fluffing pillows, coming to an equitable division of the covers, sighing as they close their eyes. Hutch keeps one hand on Starsky's belly. Starsky covers it with his own.

They've barely slipped under before the alarm goes off.


End file.
